#GREAT FIREWALL WINDOWS#
Beyond the column, he wrote about everything from Windows to tech travel tips. He founded PCWorld's "World Beyond Windows" column, which covered the latest developments in open-source operating systems like Linux and Chrome OS. He also wrote the USA's most-saved article of 2021, according to Pocket.Ĭhris was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Beyond the web, his work has appeared in the print edition of The New York Times (September 9, 2019) and in PCWorld's print magazines, specifically in the August 2013 and July 2013 editions, where his story was on the cover. With over a decade of writing experience in the field of technology, Chris has written for a variety of publications including The New York Times, Reader's Digest, IDG's PCWorld, Digital Trends, and MakeUseOf. Chris has personally written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than one billion times-and that's just here at How-To Geek. The firewall learns to identify what encrypted VPN traffic looks like and kills VPN connections.Ĭhris Hoffman is the former Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. They're also critical for many business users, so this was a surprising move. VPNs were previously used to escape the Great Firewall. Blocking VPNs: In late 2012, the Great Firewall started trying to block VPNs.The firewall does this by sending a "reset packet," essentially lying to both computers and telling them that the connection was reset so they can't talk to each other. Resetting Connections: There are indications that, after the Great Firewall blocks such packets, it will block communication between both computers for a period of time.For example, a search performed on a search engine may fail if you search for politically controversial keywords as the packets associated with the search are examined and blocked. Inspecting and Filtering Packets: "Deep packet inspection" can be used to examine unencrypted packets, looking for sensitive content.For example, Website Pulse shows us that is accessible from within China, but 's_Republic_of_China is not accessible - the firewall is looking at the URL and deciding to block web pages that appear to be about Internet censorship. Analyzing and Filtering URLs: The firewall can scan URLs and block connections if they contain sensitive keywords.This technique would also block other websites located at the same address if they're using shared hosting.
For example, to prevent people from accessing Twitter's servers even by accessing it directly at a certain IP or by using unofficial DNS servers that haven't been poisoned, China could block access to the IP address of Twitter's servers. Blocking Access to IPs: China's Great Firewall can also block access to certain IP addresses.SOPA would have brought this technique to the USA. China intentionally poisons its DNS caches with wrong addresses for websites like Twitter, making them inaccessible. If you receive an invalid response, you'll look for the website at the wrong location and you won't be able to connect. DNS Poisoning: When your try to connect to a website like, your computer contacts its DNS servers and asks for the IP address associated with the website.Censorship can often be indistinguishable from website problems - did your VPN connection die because of a legitimate network problem or because the Great Firewall noticed and killed it? Is a website down or is the firewall blocking it? It's hard to really know for sure behind the firewall.īelow are some of the tricks China uses to censor its Internet: You may just experience timeouts, blocked connections, and other error messages. For example, if you try to access a blocked website, you may not see a message informing you that the website has been locked. Through a combination of firewalls and proxy servers at these gateways, they can analyze and manipulate Internet traffic.Ĭhina's censorship isn't completely transparent. So just how is China censoring their Internet? Well, China controls the Internet gateways where traffic travels between China and the rest of the Internet.
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